


burn all your bridges (just so that you can build them again with thicker ropes)

by defcontwo



Category: Black Widow (Comics), DCU - Comicverse, Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Crossover - Marvel/DC, F/F, Implied Child Abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-03
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-17 14:00:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/868362
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/defcontwo/pseuds/defcontwo
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gotham has its Bats. Moscow has its Black Widow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	burn all your bridges (just so that you can build them again with thicker ropes)

**Author's Note:**

> for the prompt: Natasha/Yelena; alternate universe, identity porn.

Gotham has its Bats and its Birds and its Cats. Its costumed heroes, its myths to rise up and tear down and worship in equal measure. It has lines that can't be crossed and hell to be raised. It is all very overblown and theatrical. Very American, Natasha thinks grimly, as she withdraws a garrote wire from her utility belt and perches above her prey. 

Well, Moscow - Moscow has its Black Widow. 

\+ 

Natasha's mother was a ballerina. Beautiful and delicate and never taken all that seriously by the men who gathered around which made her the perfect cover for a Soviet assassin. 

She burned through identities and husbands and traitors alike. That Romanova's a regular black widow, the agents used to say behind closed doors and behind covered mouths. It was both a slur and a compliment, spoken nastily and in reverence in equal measure. Alina Romanova was the best at what she did and being the best meant that her superiors both loved and feared her. 

And in turn, Alina taught her daughter to be the best. The long hours of training, the martial arts and weaponry lessons that were ingrained into Natasha until it all came as naturally to her as breathing. Natasha will never forget the nights her mother would come home from a job, cheeks flushed and never a drop of blood on her clothing or a thread to carry it all back to her. 

Alina Romanova was too good so when the USSR fell, they found a way to hang her out to dry, their best agent strung up for all to see that after all, she was only human and breakable in the end. 

But not before she hugged her daughter tight and whispered in Natasha's ear to never let any man, any person, to take what was rightfully hers away from her. "I was the best, Natasha, and when I am gone, so too will you be." 

As the years go by, there are lots of things that Natasha forgets about her mother, lots of little details that slip away forever. 

But those words, they stay with her until her dying day. 

\+ 

This is what they all think the Black Widow is: a vigilante, a woman wanted for crimes against the state. A woman wanted for murder and theft of dangerous classified information - for slipping into the homes of dangerous men and slitting their throats as they slept like a coward in the night. 

This is what the Black Widow actually is: a predator who only seeks out other predators. A woman who has honed herself into a weapon to take down all those who would exploit the vulnerable. The wealthy and the powerful who steal from those who can barely afford to get by, the rapists and the traffickers - those are her prey. 

She has no patience for the gleaming morals that her American counterparts like to pretend to hold themselves up to. To defeat a monster you must be a monster and be just as merciless. 

Garrote wire, several knives of varying sizes, poison darts, and a sniper rifle. By night, these are the tools of the Black Widow's trade and it is a trade that she deals in well. 

By day, she is a dance teacher, quiet and unassuming. 

\+ 

The Black Widow is the best but the Lady Bullseye - the Lady Bullseye is a challenger to her throne and to her city. 

Natasha is ashamed to admit that she hadn't seen her coming. Not even when Maki Matsumuto, her charming new neighbor with the accented Russian and the too sharp smile had slipped into her life and into her bed, still Natasha did not suspect - not until it was too late. 

She had become complacent in her abilities, unchallenged as they were by the authorities and her fellow vigilantes alike. 

Natasha learns her lesson as she bleeds into the snow in an alleyway halfway across town from any help that could reach her. She learns her lesson as the Lady Bullseye walks away, leaving her for dead with a shuriken stuck in her gut. 

Natasha takes a deep, shuddering breath and she swears into the night even as shaking hands dig out her phone and she sends out an emergency distress to the only ally in the city she has, the Black Rose. 

By the time his looming figure finds her in the snow, she is half buried and barely conscious. 

\+ 

The Black Widow dies that night but Natasha lives. 

Natasha lives and flees halfway across the world to Star City to lick her wounds and to recover. She is angry, mostly at herself - she has disgraced the codename that she took on to honor her mother. She let herself be fooled and beaten and it is infuriating on so many levels that she can barely gasp out into words in any language. 

Natasha takes up a job as a translator and a bookseller for a Russian literature bookshop and burrows herself into a new life. It is easier here. Star City is not as harsh, the crime not quite as cruel, and she tells herself that it is not running away so much as it is starting over. 

She relishes in the sunny weather and takes the time to enjoy herself, to slow down a bit for the first time in her life. 

She is happy, mostly, except for the ache in her chest where the Black Widow used to live. 

Natasha tells herself she will get used to it. 

\+ 

"I don't suppose you could get down that collection of Pushkin for me," a woman's voice calls out across the shop as Natasha is taking stock of their new arrivals, her back to the customer. 

"It's only on the second to last shelf," Natasha says, turning around before her next sentence stops in her throat at the sight of the red-haired young woman in the wheelchair waiting patiently next to the bookshelf. 

Natasha nods briskly and walks across to the bookshelf, scanning the titles with familiarity. "The second edition or the third edition?" 

"The third edition. It's a gift for a very particular and prickly young friend of mine, I wouldn't hear the end of it if I came back with the second," the red-haired woman says. "And thank you." 

Natasha shrugs. "No problem, I'm just doing my job." 

"I meant for not apologizing profusely, as if the news that I'm in a wheelchair is somehow as much of a shock to me as it is to you." 

"Is that what usually happens?" Natasha asks. 

The woman nods. "More often than I'd like." 

There's something about the woman that feels - well, if Natasha is being entirely honest, there's something about the woman that reminds her of her mother. It makes her speak out on instinct in a way that surprises herself. 

"How about instead of an apology I buy you a coffee? I was about to close up for the day." 

"I'll never turn down a cup of coffee," the woman says with a smile. "I'm Barbara Gordon, by the way," she says, holding her hand out. 

Natasha takes it. "Natalia Shostakova," she says and regrets for the first time since coming here the necessity of a fake name. 

Barbara quirks an eyebrow, almost like she doesn't quite believe the name is real. "Nice to meet you, Natalia." 

"You're not from Star City," Natasha says, as they arrange themselves around a table in the closest coffee shop with their cappuccinos. 

"If we're judging by accents here, than neither are you," Barbara points out. "But you're right. I'm from Gotham, I'm just in town for a few days to visit a close friend." 

Natasha feels a little thrill go through her at Barbara's words - at Gotham. She's never been but she has the sneaking suspicion that that's probably for the best; she and the Batman have some pretty fundamental ideological differences, or at least they did, in her other life. 

"I'm guessing you've heard the stories," Barbara says with a little smirk. 

"You could say that. Are they true?" 

Barbara shrugs. "Most of them, yes. Gotham is a city that knows how to bite back, let's just say that." 

"You sound like you speak from experience." 

Barbara gestures downwards to her chair. "I do." 

"And yet you still live there." 

"It's my home, always will be," Barbara says. "Everywhere you go, there's always gonna be something that bites back. You can't let it chase you away." 

Natasha hums thoughtfully around a sip of coffee. "I suppose you're right." 

Moscow is home. The Black Widow is home. And yet here she is, a world away having coffee with a complete stranger who has struck at an ache inside of her that she's been doing her level best to ignore. 

"Look, I've got to get going to meet my friend. Thank you for the coffee and for the Pushkin, Natalia. It was lovely meeting you." 

This time, it is Natasha who holds out her hand and Barbara smiles at her warmly. "Likewise, Barbara." 

Natasha stays seated at that table for many hours, long after her coffee has gone cold and the sun has started to go down, turning over Barbara's words in her mind. 

\+ 

That should have been the impetus, her call to go back, but it's not. 

As much as she misses home, she has carved out a life for herself in Star City and it's one that she's not quite ready yet to let go of. 

Natasha stays at the bookshop and she starts to train again, to fight and run and remind her body of what it's capable of in the living room of her one-room apartment. She pushes herself and she does her research and she starts to reach out to her contacts again, to keep tabs again on Moscow. 

It's not until the news makes it to her through the Black Rose that Natasha goes rushing to her closet and starts shoving things in duffle bags. 

There's a Black Widow in Moscow again and it's most definitely not her. 

\+ 

_Never let any man, any person, take away what's rightfully yours, Natasha._

\+ 

Natasha finds her standing on top of an apartment building with a clear view straight to the Kremlin. 

She is slim and taller than Natasha, with bottle red hair and a suit that's identical to the one Natasha has on, right down to the black domino covering her eyes. There's something in her countenance, a sort of hard-headed inexperience that lets Natasha know that she's younger, perhaps only a bit older than eighteen. 

"Who are you?" Natasha asks. 

The other Black Widow turns to her with an unreadable expression before stepping back a few steps, letting out a gasp that Natasha wasn't quite expecting. "You're _her_." 

Natasha rolls her shoulders back a little, as if preparing for a fight. "The Black Widow, in the flesh. Which begs the question, who are _you_ , little spider?" 

"The Black Widow," the other woman says, chin raised in an unmistakably defiant gesture. 

"Prove it," Natasha says, before jumping into position and straight into a move that sweeps the younger woman off her feet. 

She's good, Natasha will give her that. The observation about inexperience was perhaps a bit unfair - inexperience does not necessarily imply lack of skill. Between the other woman's youth and Natasha's lack of practice, they're about even as they proceed to do their level best to throw each other all across the rooftop. 

"You probably don't remember me," the younger woman tosses out as she does a backflip away from Natasha's attempted attack. "But you saved my life once." 

"I've saved a lot of girls' lives, little spider." 

"Three years ago. The orphanage." 

Natasha doesn't remember the girl but she remembers the orphanage. The corrupt man who ran it who fed the girls into a trafficking scheme just slowly enough that authorities never noticed and treated them like shit in the mean time. She remembered the grateful looks on their faces when she slit his throat in front of them, the blood splattering onto the linoleum in front of dozens of girls, none of whom moved an inch to try and save him. 

She'd left the rest of it in the Black Rose's hands; he was always the one who managed the aftermath, who was better at managing the people and helping them move on and find better homes. 

Natasha had moved onto the next case and told herself to forget those faces because it wouldn't be the last time she'd see ones like it. 

The other woman takes advantage of Natasha's distraction, trapped as she is in memory, to tackle her to the ground and pin her arms above her head. 

"Do you think that gives you the right?" Natasha asks. "To take what's mine?"

"You weren't here," the other woman hisses down at her. "Moscow needs a Black Widow and you _weren't here_. I did what I had to do." 

There is something in the other woman's face. She is glaring down at Natasha with a bruise blooming on her right jaw and a split lip that's dripping blood and this younger woman is angry, she realizes, angry at Natasha because she'd believed in her. She'd believed in the Black Widow and the Black Widow had walked away. 

Natasha leans up against the arms holding her down and sucks on the other woman's split lip, takes in the taste of the copper on her tongue. The other woman makes a low, hungry noise and presses down so that their bodies are lined up and Natasha spreads her legs, let's the other woman fall between them as she captures Natasha in a bruising kiss. 

"I should probably know your name, little spider," Natasha gasps out as the other woman pulls away to start fumbling with the zippers and locks on Natasha's suit. 

"It's Yelena," she says, zipping down Natasha's suit all the way as Natasha realizes that their suits really are identical in every single way, that the Black Rose must have made this for Yelena, the traitor that he is. But she doesn't have much time to be angry about it before Yelena has one finger inside of her and then two and she's rocking against Yelena's hand, her vision whiting out and her brain narrowing down only to Yelena's lips on her throat and the feel of her weight on top and the deftness of her fingers. 

This should feel stranger, she thinks, fucking this young girl with her Black Widow suit and her red hair, too red to be anything but fake. But she can see all the ways in which Yelena tried so hard to be just like Natasha and failed, her own something spilling out through the cracks, her youth and her conviction, and it's the hottest thing Natasha's ever seen. 

\+ 

After, they lay spread out and haphazardly zipped up side by side on the cracked pavement of the rooftop. Natasha leans over and tugs a hand through Yelena's hair. 

"What color is it, really?" 

"Hmm? Oh, blonde," Yelena murmurs, still blissed out and only half aware. 

"A blonde Black Widow, now there's a sight I'd like to see." 

"Is it?" 

Natasha shrugs and her shoulder strains a little from the movement lying down. "Moscow's big enough for the both of us, Black Widow." 

Yelena laughs a little, a rough and breathless sort of noise. "It's good to have you back, Black Widow."


End file.
